A 72 bed ward expansion, delivered as part of Boris Johnson’s ‘build back better, greener, faster’ campaign.
The Requirements
Wye Valley NHS Trust had scope to expand the current ward facilities at Hereford County Hospital; established as the area’s leading centre for acute hospital care. MTX were successful in the bid to provide a 3 storey ward development. This project was 1 of 20 new hospital upgrades across the country, delivered under Boris Johnson’s NHS Build Fund.
The Solution
The development includes 72 bed spaces split across 3no 24 bed wards, with supporting ancillary areas such as a dedicated reception on each floor, staff bases and assessment rooms, all serviced by a top floor plant room. The new building connects into the existing hospital at ground floor level, via purpose made link corridors. A twin precast lift shaft was also integrated into the modular design to provide the new facility with 2no bed lifts. The design was developed alongside our partners DSSR Consulting Engineers and IBI Architects.
As part of the Government initiative to ‘to build back better, greener, faster’, the new building was constructed utilising Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). This allowed us to install all internal partitions and first fix M&E within a factory environment. This in turn reduced the time required on site, resulting in less vehicle movements and enhanced health & safety.
Given that the project was part of the Government’s NHS Build Fund, Repeatable Rooms designs were utilised across all 3 floors and each ward houses multi-functional bed bays alongside single bed accommodation.
Hereford County Hospital was designed with the highest ventilation standards in mind, in line with the growing demands associated with the Coronavirus pandemic. An additional AHU was provided to serve a HBN 04 supplement 1 compliant isolation room. The isolation rooms were carefully designed to optimise airtightness by ensuring all services entered the room via the lobby.
To further reduce the time spent on site, our M&E contractor fabricated, assembled and pre-installed the main plantroom headers and plate heat exchangers off site in a quality-controlled environment. This allowed us to disassemble it in larger sections and join it all together again on site, in its final position.
The new facility provided Hereford County Hospital with 3,500m² of extra accommodation and successfully achieved a BREEAM score of ‘Very Good.
Main Considerations
The new 72 bed ward development was delivered and installed during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the works the onsite team worked in close proximity to a live Covid-19 ward, keeping the patients and staff in mind at all times, ensuring social distancing and cleaning was maintained to a constant high level.
In addition to the construction of the new wards, MTX also installed a new live VIE (Vacuum Insulated Evaporator) within the same site area. This was not an easy task, due to restrictive movement and the nature of the VIE; a bulk storage facility for liquid oxygen.
Through close co-ordination with both the client and VIE provider BOC, installation works were planned meticulously to avoid busier site periods. The VIE live system compound was handed over at an earlier stage to provide a supply to other areas of the hospital.
